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What are the strategic assets in the Middle East? If the Middle Eastern states, since the 1970s, have been unable to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict; have been unable to rise above sectarian conflict by developing an ecumenical approach to Islam and coming to terms with religious pluralism; and, have outsourced the capacity to manage the region's challenges, why should any external power invest time, energy, and resources in pursuing futile options?
Obama and Putin have shown the maturity to collaborate in forcing all parties to focus upon devising their own solutions. The central issue now is whether the regional leaders can rise to the occasion and show themselves to be constructive.

Good article, though it does illustrate how useless the supposed Israeli-US alliance can be when the chips are down. Russia's intervention in Syria was well-managed. It was essentially what the United States should have done in Afghanistan in 2001, rather than become entangled in a fifteen year long war which we later extended to Iraq and Syria. As Russia has shown, short punitive expeditions can be effective, but, as America has shown, extended pacification efforts are simply a waste of time, money and lives.

Does Shlomo Ben-Ami say that "Russia's Middle East success" mirrors America's failure in the region? It is true that since Obama's decision not to enforce the “red line” drawn in 2012 after Assad had used chemical weapons on civilians, Putin has been taking centre stage. To start with Russia offered to remove Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile in 2013. Under the pretext to help Assad fight ISIS it intervened militarily in September 2015. After driving Assad's opponents out of their strongholds ithas carved out an Alawite mini-state for the regime, stretching "from Latakia in the north to Damascus in the south." Not only has Putin defied Obama's call for regime change, Russia can hold on to its airbase in Latakia and its naval port in Tartus," challenging US and NATO control in the eastern Mediterranean.
Observers maintain Putin has so far not let Russia embark on what could end up as a "long and costly war" and helped Assad regain all lost territories. Instead he has "created a deadlock," forcing Assad and the opposition to negotiate. The author sees Putin's "calculated intervention" in Syria as a "rare case in which a limited use of power in the region resulted in a major diplomatic shakeup." Not gone unnoticed is the general belief that the Middle East has started to “slip from America’s grasp,” especially when Washington's long-standing staunch allies in the region are now looking to Moscow for advancing their geopolitical interests.
The author says: "King Salman of Saudi Arabia will visit the Kremlin this month to discuss economic cooperation worth billions of dollars." Indeed, last summer much was written about King Salmon's visit to Russia, triggering unease in Washington. Later Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. The latter acknowledged that there were “still some differences regarding specific ways to reach a settlement in Syria” and said nothing about the king’s visit beyond confirming Putin’s invitation to him to “visit Russia at a convenient time.” In February the Russian news agency, RIA claimed King Salman planned to visit Moscow in mid-March, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. However Ushakov said an agenda for the visit had not yet been decided. It looked as though Moscow was keen on reaching out to Riyadh. One would have thought that Saudi Arabia was infuriated by the Russian shelling of US-backed rebel fighters, whom the Saudis and other Sunni Arabs in the Gulf region also support. Unfortunately these non-state actors have no say in their future, making them dangerous mavericks to be reckoned with.
The author says "Saudi Arabia’s nemesis Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s senior counselor, Ali Akbar Velayati, was in Moscow in February." This doesn't come as a surprise, because Iran buys arms from Moscow, and it had shipped its uranium to Russia to comply with the nuclear agreement, that enabled the lifting of economic sanctions.
According to Ben-Ami Russia's gain in the Middle East has emboldened Israel. He says this would "prevent the Iran-Hezbollah-Assad axis from dictating the Syrian conflict’s outcome. Having coordinated fully with the Russians on the Syrian front, the Israelis now expect Putin to work to keep Iranian forces away from their border on the Golan Heights, and to help bring United Nations observers back to the area." Netanyahu was in Moscow last September and he is travelling again next week to discuss with Putin about security issues in the region.
Finally the author says: "Putin is nowhere near securing a return to the Soviet Union’s imperial days in the Middle East – not least because Russia’s capacity to sustain a military operation beyond its borders remains severely limited. But his smart use of hard power to achieve specific, achievable objectives in Syria has made Russia a focal point for the major actors in the Middle East – creating a serious geopolitical challenge for the US. The next American president, it is clear, will have to rethink US regional strategy."

The U.S. is in the midst of a pivot to Asia, the place where all the money is going.

The Middle East used to be the biggest game in town when oil was first extracted in earnest around 1932, but has since been losing comparative place as other oil powers have sprung up.

Yes, it is still an important part of the world. But every day it is becoming less so.

Because of the inspired U.S. thinking to leave the Middle East for more profitable and more important shores, the MENA region must become more mature, politically. And soon!

Instead of endless talking about solving the regions troubles, the grown-ups of the region must work together to find viable solutions to such issues as the Gaza Strip, ISIS and other terror groups, Syria, Iran, and try to find ways to repair the massive flop that was the Western-inspired Arab Spring.

Russia has played its hand astonishingly well in the region.

Everything from dramatically ramped-up trade (including nuclear reactors, nuclear oversight, and other multi-billion dollar high technology deals with Iran) to becoming the de facto 'Chairman of the Board' of OPEC.

I look forward to the day when it is no longer OPEC, but ROPEC (Russia + OPEC) and Russia has also increased its involvement among the major natural gas exporters in the world, such as Qatar.

Israel and other regional powers have seen Russia's successful policy of limited involvement in Syria, in which it set out a number of very clearly defined goals -- with a positive end goal in mind.

That is the kind of partner the region needs!

If Mr. Putin can continue the present success story, he will become an indispensable and permanent partner to Israel and the wider Middle East.

The more of this, the better.

With respect, Shlomo, unlike you, I see the pivot to Asia as a positive for America. The U.S. is going where the 'money' and 'action' is.

The Middle East is no longer the biggest game in town.

And one way or another, the people of the ME region are going to have to learn to get along and work together to solve the problems of their region.

Those leaders who don't appreciate a clearly supportive Russia will miss a massive window of opportunity to replace decades of failure -- with decades of success.

My prediction is that either the region will 'fail' miserably and perhaps permanently -- or it will succeed and become a mature bloc of complementary nations.

Russian involvement in the region, of the quality we've seen from Vlad Putin over the past decade, makes success there more likely, by orders of magnitude.

"Equivocal United States policy" - That's a creative euphemism, for hesitation after being burned badly by regime change in Iraq and Libya, ongoing mess in Afghanistan, etc. The Obama administration, in hesitation, finally showed some signs of sentience, so what shall we say? Criticize for lack of will in repeating the mistakes yet again? Ugh.

The middle east "slipped from America's grasp" in 2003.

As for Russia - since they are, per official narrative, the #1 threat to world peace, it is confusing to have to choose between one of their allies controlling western Syria, and allowing it to fall to Al-Qaeda affiliates (or ISIS). You'd have to guess there might be even more refugees if either of the latter took over, more regional destabilization.

It's a mess. Like some of the other messes, it will be possible to sweep up the broken pieces and patch things up just enough that it will be possible to forget about it all from far away, at which point it will all be repeated all over again, probably in 2-3 years. But you have to wonder if all the great talent of the world's governments could be put to better use.

I think Obama's not following through on the 'red line' has more to do with an actual vote in the UK parliament, than a non-vote in Congress. I'm sure Cameron had assured Obama that parliament would pose no obstruction. And the evidence of use of nerve gas BY ASAD, is equivocal. By someone, yes. Probably not Asad, tho. (For whom, BTW, I have no brief).

Russia's intervention was well thought out, and executed, and successful. This is because its aims were well-defined and its extent limited. That Putin has received no credit from the Wast for this, I attribute to a sullen envy of that success.

Obama's problem has always been that he's supporting too many sides in the Middle east - many of which are at odds with each other, and killing each other to prove it.

But Putin is spared one colossal impediment to action - the current US political scene.

In the end, this mess has to be resolved by the local parties concerned - and that includes Iran. The US has made itself essentially irrelevant except as a generous provider of arms to whoever captures these gifts. Libya, for instance, not to mention Iraq, are two cases in point.

The promise of 'independence', and secular pan-Arabism has long since failed to help the local populations; the rule of successive kleptocrats has soured the population on anything like a 'western-style' form of governance. Once you get past the wealthier parts of the larger cities, there's a strong support for religious based governance. Which any successful dictator in the region will have to learn how to suborn. Really, 'The West' has as its only source of hope, cutting bait and going home. There is no 'victory' to be had; too many inconsistencies of intention and support. Let the locals hack each other apart. They need no advice on this. And it would focus their attention on each other, not 'terror' abroad.

Putin's triumph: not just to have realized this, but acted successfully on it.